Saw the following prompt ("harry potter AU where sirius puts up a powerpoint presentation for lily called "reasons why you should give my bro a chance"") - ravenpuffwudgie and levins18 encouraged me to write it.

And, well, friends - here we are. Enjoy the nonsense.

When Lily had decided to cross the fucking Atlantic for uni, she really wished she'd known a few things -

That New York is the kind of city that gets under your skin, that makes you never want to leave.

That American universities make you take modules in all the fucking subjects instead of just the one that you want to study.

That she will become one of those people that talks about her bodega like it is literally ending world hunger, and everyone else will quietly hate her for it.

That she would, in her first fucking week at Columbia, meet someone that would torture her for the rest of her academic career.

Marlene, her freshman roommate and, now, her best friend, always said that "torture" was far too strong a word, that nothing even remotely like that was going on, but Lily was adamant - James fucking Potter was put on this earth to drive her right round the bloody twist.

He and his friends lived in her dorm her first year (and her second… and her third… and her fucking fourth). The four of them were always running around the corridors in their building at all fucking hours that first year, screaming instead of talking because they had literally no idea how to moderate tone, doing their absolute best to destroy the place because they were rich and stupid and didn't care what anyone thought of them. They'd made her life a living hell that first year (she's still convinced that they're the reason she got a 79 on her chemistry midterm that first semester) and she'd gone out of her way to avoid even seeing them, because just the sight of them would send her into a blind rage for the rest of an afternoon.

It didn't help, of course, that Sirius Black, one of the four and James' apparent brother, was in a yoga class she took that year and that he'd spent the whole of their time there trying to explain James Potter and his many merits. Sirius would talk about James' "truly stellar soccer skills" as they walked in and rolled out their mats, would whisper little facts about him under his breath as they moved through poses, would promise her that she could have his number any time she wanted it while she tried to relax into corpse pose. He was relentless (and also very lucky that this was happening in a yoga class because otherwise, she would have bludgeoned him to death in front of everyone).

She didn't need Sirius talking James up though, because James fucking Potter was in almost every single one of her biology modules, because of course they were both in the biological sciences department. He'd spotted her and Marlene their first day in Biology 1010, had sat down with them (Lily cursed her fucking red hair for making her so easy to spot), and from that first lecture on, he was always just there. He ended up in her labs and lectures so often that Lily would have sworn up and down that he was stalking her schedule, but when they only offered three sections of a course and they both needed to take it, she knew that the numbers weren't exactly in her favour.

He was quieter in seminar, though, and Lily couldn't tell if it was because he was away from his friends or if it was because he was genuinely interested in the work that they were doing, or just because he realised that you can't exactly go around acting like an arsehole all the time.

Even with all her extended exposure to James, though, it was Remus that she really warmed to first.

They'd ended up in the same English seminar her sophomore year and were partnered together for some presentation early in the term. After spending a truly disturbing number of hours alone with him in the library researching Shakespeare or some shit that she'd honestly completely forgotten now, she found that she really liked him. He was quieter, a little more controlled than the other three, and his dry, sarcastic humour and impossibly thick Irish accent made her feel like home. He said he'd moved to Boston with his parents when he was fifteen, that he'd kept the accent intentionally sharp just to do it, because people never expected it when he met them, and he liked it when they were surprised. If it were anyone else trying to feed her that line, she probably would have hated them on principle, but there was just something about Remus that let him get away with it.

Even Sirius and Peter had grown on her before James had, to the point where she'd ended up (accidentally and then on purpose) getting coffee with Sirius a few times, and she wasn't that irritated when Peter turned up in her third year art seminar. They'd all settled down a bit more (at least, they weren't running around the corridors in her hall at three in the bloody morning anymore) and she found (much to her chagrin) that she actually kind of enjoyed having them around. They were still a bit mad, Sirius especially, but they were also hilarious and annoyingly charming and always had something interesting to talk about or some story to share, and she was only mildly surprised when she started getting coffee with them regularly, when she and Marlene started joining them in the dining hall for dinner.

Even though now that she'd come to appreciate the others, her relationship with James was still largely one of polite tolerance and nothing more. She wasn't sure what it was about James that made her keep her guard up, didn't know why she hadn't settled into the same annoying friendship with him as she had with the others. Sure, he'd been annoying freshman year, but so had the other three. James had settled just like they had, had buckled down a bit more, especially recently, and honestly, she really should like him.

It was probably, according to Marlene anyway, the fact that James obviously liked her, that he looked at her in seminar like she'd single-handedly created the entire universe, that he went out of his way to talk to her, that he ruffled his hair up, winked, smirked, and joked a little bit more whenever she was around. She knew that James liked her, anyone could have seen that, he wore it so plainly on his sleeve, but she always argued that she didn't want to encourage him when she didn't feel that way in return.

Marlene had never laughed so loudly in her life, and Lily was finally forced to confess that, fine, he was mildly attractive, but that still didn't mean a damn thing.

Marlene argued that she couldn't honestly say that it didn't mean anything if she'd never even given James a chance, if she'd never even let herself imagine a world where she was open to the possibility. And, because she's a traitor, Marlene used every opportunity from that moment on to push Lily into taking that chance. Her favourite tactic was abandoning Lily in chem lab, and forcing her and James to partner - Lily would shoot her glares across the lab the entire time, but Marlene was usually too wrapped up in Dorcas (the brilliant chemist Marlene had been pursuing since their third year) to care.

Ultimately, though, she and James out-performed everyone else in lab whenever they were partnered, and so she guessed that she couldn't really complain too much.

Now, she was in her final year at Columbia, at the end of the last fall term of her career, and just when she thought she was finally shot of them, when she finally wouldn't have to worry about giving anyone a chance, she ended up with all fucking four of them in one of her seminars. Columbia College had decided, much to her chagrin, to require a professional writing seminar, and, with all the intense competition for courses and only two terms in which to take it, she ended up sitting on the waitlist for Science Writing forever before she finally decided that signing up for the regular, late afternoon section was going to be her best bet.

Apparently, the Marauders (as they called themselves, the gits) had decided that that was their best bet, too.

It hadn't been as bad as she'd thought it would be, if she was being entirely honest. They were polite in class (she'd never seen all four of them in seminar at once, but she'd always imagined it would be a complete shit show), they worked diligently, and whenever they did talk to her in seminar, they did it without irritating her.

She should have known that it was all too good to last.

Half-way through term, their professor decided to give them a presentation on any topic of their choice in lieu of a midterm exam, something that would have made her really excited (anything to get out of writing some long stupid essay on some topic she couldn't care less about), until she noticed the look on Sirius Black's face when she announced it. He'd laughed, loud, before he managed to bite it back, shot James an absolutely wicked look, and, when he noticed her watching him, shot her a wink that made her incredibly nervous.

In the time that she'd come to be… friends (could you call it friends, what they were?) with Sirius Black, though, she knew that he was probably just doing it to rile her up. At least, that's what she hoped this was, because he could also be a complete and total human wrecking ball when he wanted to be (and she had a feeling in her gut that told her this might be one of those times).

Her suspicions were confirmed the very next Monday when Sirius strolled to the front of the class, broad grin on his face, and put his presentation up onto the projector. A few people snickered when the title screen went up, a bright red block of text, but Lily's stomach had started going mad and she couldn't hear anything else that was going on around her.

'Reasons why you, Lily "Red" Evans,' Sirius shot her a wide grin as he read out the title, and Lily's face went scarlet, 'should give my brother, James Potter a chance.'

He gestured towards James when he said his name, and Lily noted that, though James stood and took a sweeping bow, he, too, was red. Sirius grinned broadly at them, and clicked the remote in his hand, changed slides.

'Physical Attributes,' Sirius said, reading out the first slide, 'of which there are many.' He waggled his eyebrows at James and Lily couldn't help but notice that James flushed a brilliant red as he shot her a look. He mouthed something that looked vaguely like 'I'm sorry' at her, but she never was the best at reading lips and so she couldn't be sure. Sirius clicked the slide again, and Lily burst out laughing before he had the chance to read it out.

'Hair,' she said, raising an incredulous eyebrow at him, 'That's your first reason?!'

The slide had a picture of James running his hand through his hair, and the real James, the one sitting across from her, copied the motion awkwardly. He wasn't looking at the camera in this picture and Lily was sure that he'd had no idea that Sirius (because she assumed that it had to have been Sirius) had taken it.

Sirius nodded, 'His hair is nothing like mine,' he flicked his hair back over his shoulder, 'but it's actually very, very good hair. And incredibly soft.'

She saw James' lips moving again, but he was glaring at Sirius this time and she couldn't hear what he was mumbling under his breath from this distance. Judging by the look on his face, though, she was sure that it wasn't anything particularly polite.

Sirius clicked to the next slide and Lily nearly choked. This slide had a picture of James, sweat shining on his brow, across his naked chest, and Lily had temporarily forgotten to breathe. His football shirt was in his hand and Lily knew that he must have just tugged it off on his way off the pitch. Sirius sent her a wicked grin when he noticed her staring, 'His body. Just look at him, Red. The evidence speaks for itself.'

Their instructor cleared her throat, 'Mr Black, is this really - '

Sirius clicked to the next slide (this one showed a picture of some glasses) and said, 'Sorry, sorry,' but he didn't look sorry at all.

'His glasses,' Sirius read out, 'are very attractive.'

Lily nodded before she could stop herself and sucked in a sharp breath when Sirius' smile widened. 'Next,' Sirius said, clicking the remote, 'we have his other attributes. Things that make him the perfect nerd for you, Red.'

He clicked to a cartoon of two people holding test tubes, 'He loves science! You two can nerd out about science for the rest of your damn lives and then I'll never have to hear about lipids again.'

Lily couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her then, couldn't help the fact that her eyes flicked over, briefly, to James'. Couldn't help that her breath caught in her throat when she realised he was looking at her.

'He likes shit television,' Sirius had changed the slide again when she looked back and saw the huge East Enders opening screen on the projector. 'Oi,' she said, laughing, 'East Enders is brilliant.'

'No, Red,' Sirius said, 'it's terrible.'

He changed slides again, and this one included a picture of the queen at her jubilee. 'This,' Sirius said, 'has two important meanings. First, James absolutely adores your accent and so you could get him to do whatever you wanted.'

'Hey,' James finally interjected and Lily looked over at him, saw his hand buried awkwardly in his hair again. Sirius just grinned at him and continued, 'And second, James has a completely unhealthy obsession with your monarchy. He made us all stay up and fret with him when Kate had those babies, and wouldn't stop talking about them for at least a week.'

Lily looked over at James to confirm this, and the now violent flush on his cheeks told her all that she needed to know.

'In conclusion,' Sirius said, and he clicked past a header slide to a picture of two people kissing under some fireworks (Lily barely suppressed the laughter that threatened to bubble out of her just then), 'the available evidence suggests that Prongs and Red would make the world's grossest couple, but in order to test this hypothesis, we need Red to give Prongsie here a chance.'

Sirius smiled at Lily, and even though he was up there having fun at their expense, even though he was probably just doing this because torturing James was one of his favourite past times, Lily would have sworn on her life that there was something genuine in the way that he looked at her then.

Sirius pulled his eyes away from Lily and scanned the room, said, 'Thank you,' and bowed before he dropped the remote back onto the desk at the front of the classroom and took his seat. James grabbed Sirius immediately by the back of his neck and pulled him so that he could whisper furiously in his ear. Lily watched Sirius raise an eyebrow at whatever James was saying, was sure that James was furious judging by the look on his face, but she looked away quickly when Sirius looked up, caught her watching, and shot her a wink.

Their instructor sighed as she turned in her seat to face the class again, 'Thank you, Mr Black, for that… interesting presentation. Mr Aubrey, you're up next please.'

She tried not to obsess about Sirius' stunt for the rest of the presentations that period, but she found it more difficult than usual to keep her eyes away from the group in the corner, found herself watching them more often than she would ever admit (and watching one of them in particular). Sirius was right in most of his presentation - she and James did have a lot in common. They shared a lot of the same interests, had a similar sense of humour, were doing the same course for fucks sake, but… she couldn't even say that she'd never thought about him that way because, well, Sirius was right, James was fucking fit, but you don't just spend a full year loathing someone and then two more in a kind of weird truce and then suddenly decide that you're going to give them a chance. Right?

Forty-five minutes later, their instructor announced the end of seminar, and gave out the presentation schedules for class on Wednesday. Sirius, Remus, and Peter walked out the moment class ended, laughing about some joke or another, but James hung around, hand in his hair as he eyed Lily nervously. 'I, uh - I'm sorry. About Sirius. He - I didn't know he was - '

Lily held up her hand, shook her head softly, 'No, I didn't think you did judging by the look on your face most of the time.'

'I had no idea that he was going to do that,' James said, 'I - I'm going to kill him, I swear.'

Lily laughed, ran a hand through her hair, 'He meant it as a joke. It's alright.'

'It's -' he stopped, laughed awkwardly, ran his hand through his hair again, 'That's not what I expected.'

She grabbed her bag off the ground, slung it over her shoulder. 'It's not like you could have done anything to stop him,' Lily said, smiling, shifting her weight between her feet. James laughed, 'True.'

'You wanna?' She pointed over her shoulder towards the door and James nodded. She turned and James fell into step beside her as they walked out of their classroom. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him - she knew she wanted to say something, but she didn't know where to start.

'I - '

'So - '

They'd both started talking at the same time and Lily laughed, James ran a hand through his hair. 'Shit,' he said, 'you go.'

'No,' Lily said, shaking her head as they turned into the stairwell and started walking downstairs, 'I didn't know what I was going to say anyway.'

'I was just going to ask about your presentation next class. Hardly exciting.'

Lily shook her head, 'No. But, uh, I actually think you'd - ' She broke off, cleared her throat awkwardly.

'Oh,' James said, something clicked into place in his head and he smiled widely at her, 'oh my god, tell me.'

'It's so nerdy,' she said, and she felt her cheeks go hot. James laughed, 'Did you pay attention to the presentation, Evans? I live for nerdy things.'

She smacked his arm which just made him laugh louder, and she sighed, 'I'm presenting on the research project I'm doing in my independent clinical.'

'Oh, I forgot you're doing an ICR this semester,' James said. He was glowing with excitement when he turned to look at her, 'What's your project on?'

'Wait,' Lily said, laughing, 'how did you know that I'm doing an ICR?'

James cleared his throat, flushed a little, 'M-McGonagall might have mentioned it during our advising meeting last semester. I told her I wasn't sure what courses I should look at, and she said I should talk to you. She, uh, she thinks we're close because we're always in the same classes.'

'That doesn't explain how you - '

'She said that, if nothing else, I should at least talk with you about the ICR project you're doing with Slughorn. She thought it sounded a lot like interests I'd expressed in her office lately and she thought I'd enjoy hearing what you're working on.'

'Oh,' Lily said, 'I didn't know that you're interested in membrane biophysics.'

'I, uh, I wasn't,' he shot her a quick look that she couldn't quite decipher as they walked into the lobby, 'I'm still a biochem major and all, but after Dad, uh - '

She shook her head, didn't want him to feel compelled to explain something that was clearly painful for him to talk about. 'We - we don't have to - '

'Thanks,' he said, 'I'll - I'll tell you at some point. It's just still too - ' His hands were trembling and she reached out, took them in her own. 'It's alright,' she said, squeezing his hands gently, 'I mean, it's not. But - '

He nodded, 'Yeah.' He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he looked at her like he was trying to memorise every detail. He smiled at her after a moment, and though there was still a bit of sadness lingering there, he looked… not better, but at least temporarily so.

'Thanks, Evans,' he said, 'Really.'

She nodded, 'Of course, James.' She let his hands drop and they walked outside.

'Which way are you going,' he asked, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. She laughed, 'We live in the same building, Potter, you know where I have to go.'

James hit the signal at the intersection and grinned at her, 'No, I know, Evans, but I didn't know if you were going home or what your plans were.'

'I think I'm actually going to go get dinner or something,' she said, patting her stomach, 'I'm starving. I was in the lab all day and I haven't eaten since breakfast.'

James hummed, 'That sounds good.'

'Do you, uh,' she turned to look at him, 'want to go with me?'

James gaped at her, 'What?'

She smiled, tried to lighten her tone to keep it from betraying how (inexplicably) nervous she was, 'I just saw a pretty convincing presentation about giving you a chance, and I figured I could try.' She stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, looked over at him as they got the signal, and crossed Amsterdam onto W 120th.

James cleared his throat, 'Uh - yeah, Evans, I'd love that.' He ran a hand through his hair again, smiled down at her, and he looked so damn happy (and handsome) that her heart started pounding in her chest.

She grinned, 'Brilliant. Sottocasa?'

James nodded, 'Yes, that place is fucking awesome.'

They continued down W 120th, through the park, chatted about whatever popped into their minds, and it was astounding how easy he was to talk to when she wasn't busy trying to ignore him. He was funny and dead brilliant and… fuck -

'James?'

She turned to him at the intersection of Manhattan, and he looked down at her, eyebrow raised, smiled, 'Yeah, Lily?'

She reached over, before she talked herself out of it, and took his hand, 'You can never, ever tell Sirius that this worked.'

James grinned, squeezed her hand, 'Your secret is safe with me.'